Mabinogion

The Mabinogion is a collection of eleven medieval Welsh tales preserved in two manuscripts: the White Book of Rhydderch (c. 1350 CE) and the Red Book of Hergest (c. 1382-1410 CE). The name, coined by the Victorian translator Lady Charlotte Guest (1838-1845), is a mistaken generalization of the Welsh word mabinogi (the first four tales are called the 'Four Branches of the Mabinogi'); modern scholars use the name as a conventional label for the entire collection. The tales represent the most important survival of early Celtic mythological and literary tradition in any language.

The collection includes the Four Branches of the Mabinogi (the core mythological narratives), independent native tales (Culhwch and Olwen, The Dream of Macsen Wledig, Lludd and Llefelys, The Dream of Rhonabwy), and three Arthurian romances (Owain, Peredur, Geraint) that closely parallel the French romances of Chrétien de Troyes and represent the Arthurian tradition in its Welsh form. Together they provide an incomparable window into the mythological world of pre-Christian and early Christian Celtic Britain.

The Four Branches — Pwyll Prince of Dyfed, Branwen Daughter of Llyr, Manawydan Son of Llyr, and Math Son of Mathonwy — form the mythological heart of the collection. They feature the British gods and heroes (many identifiable as euhemerized divinities) moving through a world where the boundaries between the natural and supernatural are fluid, where Annwn (the Otherworld) lies just beyond ordinary vision, and where honor, loyalty, and the keeping of promises carry the weight of cosmic consequences.

• Genesis 2:21-22
• Genesis 37-50
• Job 1-42
• Isaiah 53
• 1 Peter 2:20-23
• Hebrews 13:2
• 1 Corinthians 15
• Revelation 21-22

The Mabinogion is the source of the earliest Welsh Arthurian tales — and in Culhwch and Olwen, Arthur appears not as a courtly king but as a warrior chieftain whose warband includes figures with magical powers, including a man who can hear an ant fifty miles away and another who can drink up entire seas. This archaic Arthur is very different from the chivalric king of later tradition.